Vladiscar Castle, Romania – Unknown Time
A low, throaty groan slipped from a girl's lips as consciousness clawed its way back into her skull like jagged glass scraping along bone.
Her fingers twitched against something—silken, padded? She shifted, her nails dragging along the velvet-lined interior beneath her. She blinked slowly, lids heavy as if they'd been sealed shut for centuries. The air was thick, scented faintly of iron and wilted roses.
Ruby red eyes glowed in the darkness like dying embers in a hearth long abandoned, flickering softly with an ancient hunger barely contained.
~| 💮 |~
I exhaled slowly, the breath rattling in my throat as awareness fully settled on me like a weight I wasn't ready to carry.
"What the hell…?'
My hands slid along the velvet beneath me again, fingers tracing the smooth curves of whatever I was lying in. It felt… expensive. Soft. Comfortable, in that wrong kind of way—like something meant for display, not for living. I pressed my palms flat and pushed up, the creak of aged hinges echoing in the still air as the lid gave way above me.
I sat up stiffly, hair falling around my shoulders like a dark curtain. My body felt… wrong.
Light. Predatory. Every inch of me hummed like I was standing on the edge of something dangerous.
To distract myself, I looked around my surroundings, only to be even more confused. The towering gothic arches. The obsidian walls laced with crimson veins that pulsed faintly like they were alive. Drapes of blood-red velvet swayed ever so slightly, though I felt no breeze.
My breath hitched. I wasn't home or anywhere that was familiar .
Panic should've hit me like a freight train, but instead… there was only a cold, eerie calm settling into my bones.
I shifted my legs, letting them fall over the side of the coffin. My bare feet met icy stone, grounding me in the surreal nightmare I had woken up in.
That's when I saw it.
A flicker of light—no, code—rippled across my vision like a glitchy HUD from a game. And then… a voice that wasn't a voice.
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[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION – WARNING: UNRECOGNIZED ARTIFACT DETECTED]
Artifact Classification: [Uncatalogued | Dimensional Anomaly]
Designation: Heartshard Ruby
Status: Soul-Bound to Entity [Nocturne, P.]
Thread Affiliation: None System Compatibility: Partial (Override Detected)
This entity possesses a foreign core not authorized by Heaven, Hell, or the Grigori Database. Artifact appears to be self-sustaining. No known source of divine, demonic, or infernal resonance.
-----
The glowing text faded and I stared ahead, heart steady, pulse calm—eerily so. Almost like the panic had been ripped out of me and replaced with… calm?
"Great," I muttered, running a hand through my long hair. "I wake up in some kind of noble vampire house, and now some cryptic system is saying I have some heaven and hell defying artifact. Fantastic."
My gaze dropped to my lap—there it was. Nestled just above my navel, like it had always been there. Embedded in my skin like a blood-rose gem pulsing softly… was the Heartshard Ruby.
I touched it. It was warm. Alive.
Somewhere in the corner of my eye, I felt a faint… hum in the air, like a heartbeat. My head turned to where the feeling was coming from before I could stop myself. There, in the far corner of the room, standing like some cursed relic of a world long dead… was a scythe.
It was tall and elegant, black as void with a crimson gem embedded in its core. It was pulsing like it was waiting for something.
I swallowed hard, throat dry as sand. Every instinct told me to run. But something deeper… something in my blood… whispered the opposite.
Claim me.
The whisper coiled through my mind like silk tightening around my throat. My jaw clenched.
"Nope…" I muttered under my breath, forcing one foot in front of the other toward the edge of the room.
I didn't make it two steps before the air thickened. The pulsing grew louder—deeper—like it recognized me.
_____
[SYSTEM BLOODLINE ANALYSIS – ALERT]
Subject: Nocturne, Poppy Nyxaria Vladiscar
Bloodline Class: Forbidden Hybrid – Unthreaded Entity
Primary Strain: Vladiscar (Crimson Widow – Vampire Progenitor Line)
Secondary Strain: Archseraphic Anomaly – Seraphim Samael (Poison of God)
Result: Unstable Divine-Vampiric Fusion
Gene-Spiritual Integrity: Tethered by anomaly core [Heartshard Ruby]
Soul-State: Fractured but Autonomous
______
My stomach dropped. 'What the fuck was happening? I'm some kind of vampire angel hybrid?'
I staggered back, breathing ragged. My spine hit the nearest wall, the stone biting into my skin through the lace I somehow found myself dressed in. I looked down at my hands, pale and trembling. My nails were dark—too dark—like obsidian claws.
Another pulse echoed through the chamber. It was louder than before. And it felt hungrier.
I forced my gaze back toward the scythe. It hadn't moved… but I swear it could feel my unease. Judging me somehow.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to calm my emotions. "Okay Poppy, breathe. Just breathe and think. You are in an unknown place and just woke up in a fancy coffin. What do you remember last?"
I sifted through the static in my head, trying to grab onto something—anything—that made sense.
Fragments flickered like broken glass:
Bright lights. The screech of tires. Pain. So much pain. And then… nothing. Just Darkness. Then being dragged to... somewhere. There was a goddess, I think? Yeah, she was the one who made that Heartshard thing and shoved it into my chest before sending me off.
My breath caught in my throat.
"I died."
I slid down the wall, curling into myself on the freezing stone floor. My hands dug into my hair, clawing at my scalp like I could somehow peel the nightmare away.
"I can't believe this shit. I actually fucking died and got isekai'd," I whispered, but the pulse—that horrible, steady heartbeat—only grew louder.
Mocking me. Well, believe it, it seemed to say.
I forced my head up again, jaw clenching till my teeth ached. The scythe still stood there, humming like it was alive. Like it was waiting for me.
"What the hell do you want from me?" I snapped softly, my voice cracking into the oppressive silence.
That's when I heard it. A whisper. Pick me up.
I wiped my face with my hand, half laughing, half choking on the brittle sound.
"Great. I'm hearing voices that aren't mine now."
I pushed myself off the floor, legs shaking like wet noodles. Every cell in my body screamed not to move closer, but that damn pulse kept pulling at me, curling around my mind like silk threads tightening with every step.
Sighing, I said, "Fuck it." Then—before my better judgment could scream any louder—I grabbed the damn thing.
The second my fingers curled around the cold obsidian shaft, the pulse exploded. It was like my soul snapped into something vast and alive.
Another system screen popped up.
_______
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION – SOULBOUND WEAPON DETECTED]
Designation: Scarlet Widow: Nyxiphage
Type: Reaper-Class Weapon (Cursed / Living / Worldbreaker-Tier)
Status: Dormant – Core Sync Initiating... [Bloodline Match Detected: Vladiscar (Crimson Widow)]
[Soul Signature Detected: Nocturne, P.]
[Ownership Granted – Lock Override Applied] WARNING: This weapon contains 13 bound soul entities.
Cognitive contamination risk: HIGH
Corruption vector: VOCAL / EMOTIONAL / BLOODLINK
Weapon Traits Activated:
– [Soul Severance] – Ignores physical defense; severs spiritual core
– [Essence Drain] – Converts slain enemies into energy
– [Widow's Choir] – Projects fear-based psychic interference in proximity
– [Reaper Form Available] – Locked behind Command Phrase Unlock Criteria: "Weave my ruin, Scarlet Widow… drink until nothing remains."
Bound Status:
– Permanently linked to user's soul and bloodline
– Cannot be unequipped, discarded, or sealed by divine/demonic forces
– Weapon will awaken in moments of near-death or overwhelming threat.
_______
My breath hitched as the room vanished in a violent lurch, replaced by a swirling black void. Blood-red threads stretched into infinity, weaving patterns that bent in and out of existence like some cosmic spider's web.
A loud ding echoed in my skull, sharp as a knife dragged across glass.
My heart nearly stopped when a System Screen flickered to life in the void before me—black background, white glyph-like lettering, and blood-red borders that seemed to bleed as I read.
______
[System Binding Initiated]
User: Poppy Nyxaria Vladiscar Nocturne
Artifact: Scarlet Widow – Nyxiphage
Status: Compatibility—Perfect (100%) [Bloodline Synchronization Unlocked]
[New Skill Acquired: Widow's Nerves] [New Passive Acquired: Widow's Defiance] [Weapon Bond Established: Soul-Bound]
Warning: Soul Integrity at Risk — Initial Bonding Will Commence Now.
_______
My breath hitched again.
What the hell does "initial bonding" even—
A sudden sharp crack echoed through the void as the blood-red threads lurched, snapping toward me like whips. I barely had time to flinch before they pierced into my body, sinking into my skin like searing hot needles.
I screamed, falling to my knees, the scythe glued to my palm like it had melted into my bones. The threads slithered into my veins, my muscles locking as wave after wave of pressure crushed down on me.
[Initial Bonding Complete.]
I clenched my jaw so hard I felt something crack in the back of my teeth. My body trembled, muscles twitching like they were trying to tear themselves apart from the inside out.
Another sharp DING sounded, almost mocking, as more lines of blood-stained text burned their way across my vision.
______
[World Integration in Progress:]
Assigned World: [Vladiscar-Domain | Koray-Branch Alpha-09]
New Thread Registration: DENIED
Status: Unthreaded Entity
Warning: Subject exists outside this world's pre-written destiny. Tracking may fail. Narrative influence unstable.
______
A whole new universe.
I gagged on the air—if you could call this swirling nothingness air at all.
I tried to let go, to peel my fingers off the shaft, but it wouldn't budge. It was like the damn thing had grafted itself to my bones. Every pulse through the handle rattled up my arm and into my skull, making my vision blur and twitch at the edges.
My breath hitched again as another surge slammed into me—heavier, sharper, testing me, like it was trying to fold me into something else. My knees hit the ground again with a sharp crack against the floor of that endless webbed void.
No. Not like this. I wasn't going to let some cosmic relic crush me from the inside out.
With a snarl, I planted the end of the scythe into the ground—if this void even had ground—and leaned into the pressure. My jaw clenched so hard it hurt, but I pushed.
Pushed back.
Every muscle in my body trembled. My blood felt like molten steel burning through my veins, but I refused to break.
I dug deeper, forcing my mind to stay sharp, to hold—No. Not hold—Command.
I could feel it fighting me, pressing tighter around my soul like it was waiting for me to snap. But it wasn't in control. I was.
Gritting my teeth, I sucked in a breath through the pain and slammed my will against it one last time, locking down every inch of my mind like iron gates slamming shut.
I refused to let it take anything I wasn't ready to give.
Slowly… the crushing pressure began to recede, pulling back like a tide retreating from shore. The threads hanging in the void shuddered, losing their tension. The pulse in the scythe slowed to something… quieter. Controlled.
Mine.
I stayed on my knees, breathing hard, the scythe still glued to my hand—but this time, it felt… steady.
It no longer felt overpowering or invasive. But like it had finally recognized me.
I let out a shaky breath, finally able to straighten my back.
"I shouldn't have listened to my gut instinct."
The moment I said that, the void shuddered. The red threads snapped all at once, spiraling into nothing like burned silk catching fire. The swirling black around me fractured, light spilling through the cracks like a dam giving way.
I barely had time to brace myself before the world lurched again. Like being yanked backward through a keyhole.
The next thing I knew, I was slamming back into my body, gasping like I'd surfaced from drowning. My knees buckled under me as I collapsed onto the cold stone floor of that damned gothic chamber again.
[Bloodline successfully activated.] [Soulbound Weapon successfully activated.]
The scythe—still in my hand—hummed low, but it was silent now. Like a blade resting after a kill.
I coughed, tasting blood at the back of my throat, but it was… bearable. My heartbeat felt like it was actually mine again.
The room was the same—towering arches, velvet drapes, crimson veins glowing faintly in the stone—but it felt…smaller somehow. Less overwhelming.
I climbed to my feet on shaky legs and looked down at the scythe.
The gemstone at its core dimmed, as if satisfied.
And for the first time since waking up in this nightmare... I felt like I was the one holding it, not the other way around.
"Fuck, I'm already hating this damn world. Is it too late to go back into the coffin and sleep?"