#Chapter 1: Day of Conscription
Ramon woke with his head pounding and blood drying on his lip. Last night was a blur—he remembered fists, jeers, and the cold of the alley floor. But most of all, he remembered the voice: "Enough blood from host. Optimization beginning."
He still couldn't make sense of it, so he pushed it to the back of his mind—until he paused.
"Gone," he muttered. The chain had been with him longer than memory itself—a silent comfort, a relic he'd clutched through every orphanage beating and cold night. Now it was gone. Just like everything else he'd ever tried to hold onto.
Somehow, he'd ended up back in his cramped corner of the orphanage's sleeping quarters. Around him, the usual morning chaos unfolded as teenagers chatted, dressed, and hurried toward the orphanage square to line up for whatever menial tasks might earn them a day's meal. When Ramon emerged from the quarters, every pair of eyes seemed to follow him, their gazes heavy with something he couldn't identify.
"Never mind," he muttered to himself, pushing through the crowd and hoping to find someone who needed an errand boy.
Three corners from the orphanage, he spotted his tormentors from the night before. But something was wrong—their faces were mottled with fresh bruises, and the moment they saw him, they scattered like startled rats.
Why were they scared of him? He should've been the one flinching. Had something happened last night—something he couldn't remember?
Before Ramon could process this strange reversal, a bell rang across the grounds.
The bell's tone was different—deeper, more urgent. It only rang when every soul in the orphanage was summoned to the square. Ramon joined the stream of running children, his confusion deepening with each step.
The orphanage square buzzed with nervous energy. Mistress Hadley stood at the center, flanked by men in the black uniforms of the kingdom's army. One soldier held a scroll, his voice carrying across the gathered crowd as he read from a list.
"Zac."
"Patte."
"Zane."
One by one, teenagers stepped forward as their names were called. Ramon's stomach twisted as he realized they were all around his age—eighteen, or close to it.
"Ramon."
His name cut through the morning air like a blade. On unsteady legs, he walked to where the others stood, his mind reeling.
When the last name was called, Mistress Hadley addressed the remaining children. "The rest of you may return to your duties." Her voice was unusually gentle, almost apologetic.
As the crowd dispersed, she turned to the selected group. "After all these years, the kingdom of Velgrath has provided for you, sheltered you, fed you. Now it's time for you to serve in return."
She nodded to the lead soldier. "Sergeant Morris will take it from here."
The sergeant stepped forward, his weathered face stern. "From this moment forward, you will obey all instructions without question. Follow me and remain silent."
They were marched through the city's winding streets, past familiar shops and faces that now seemed to belong to another world. Their destination was a nondescript building that, once they passed through its entrance, revealed itself to be far larger than it appeared—much of it extending underground through a maze of corridors.
In a vast chamber beneath the earth, hundreds of other young people waited. All wore the same expression of bewildered fear that Ramon felt churning in his own chest.
A uniformed officer mounted a raised platform, his voice booming across the assembled crowd. "Today, your childhood ends. You are eighteen years old, and your time has come to serve this kingdom. You are now conscripts in the royal army. You will be divided into groups of twenty, each assigned an instructor. Today you will undergo Bloodline Energy awakening through the serum. All of you begin at Rank F, Level 1. Your worth to the kingdom—and your survival—depends on how far you can rise. Training begins at dawn tomorrow."
An instructor approached with a wicker basket filled with numbered tokens. Ramon's trembling fingers drew the number three.
Group Three was led to a sterile chamber by a man with graying temples and calculating eyes. "I am Instructor Eric. For the duration of your training, my word is law." He gestured to a table lined with twenty glass vials filled with dark red liquid. "Before you lies the Bloodline Serum. It will awaken your Energy Core and unlock your hereditary power—the essence passed down through your lineage. This determines not just your rank as a soldier, but your entire future in the Six Kingdoms. Each of you will step forward and drink."
The first recruit approached the table with visible terror. The liquid went down like liquid fire, and within moments, the young man collapsed, convulsing.
"Did he die?" someone whispered after the first boy dropped.
"Shut up," muttered another. "We're all next."
One by one, they each took their turn.
When Ramon's moment came, his hands shook so violently he nearly dropped the vial. He stared at it, its surface catching the torchlight like liquid rubies.
*This is it,* he thought. *Whatever I am... it gets written now.*
The serum burned down his throat like molten metal, and pain unlike anything he'd ever experienced tore through his body. As darkness crept in at the edges of his vision, that familiar voice returned to his mind—clearer now, more distinct.
A voice—not heard, but felt, like thought made iron—echoed in his skull:
*[System Booting]*
*[Bloodline refinement serum detected]*
*[Bloodline refinement beginning]*
*[Ancient Warlord bloodline unlocked]*
*[Bloodline Rank: E]*
In that moment, everything went blank and he fell into a dream. In the dream, he stood before a stream of blood. The stream pulsed with impossible color—blood, yes, but alive. Inside it flickered blades clashing, soldiers screaming, cities burning. The past, liquified.
Then, without warning, a force yanked him forward. His hands touched the stream—and he screamed. Red light exploded. Flesh burned. The blood didn't vanish into the air—it vanished into him.
He dropped to his knees, back arched, mouth wide in a silent scream as if his very veins were ablaze. Every breath became a battlefield.
But within the agony came something else: not just pain, but memory. Not his own. Battles fought. Empires crumbled. A legacy written in blood.