The rain had been falling for hours.
Each droplet struck the rusted rooftops of Eyris City with the dull rhythm of exhaustion. The city was a graveyard of lights and smoke, where the scent of metal and oil hung heavier than the air itself. Neon signs flickered above broken streets, painting the world in a heartbeat of colors — red, violet, then dead again.
Beneath one of those flickering signs knelt Arin Vale, his hood pulled low, the cold drizzle tracing along the scar that cut across his cheek. His breath misted faintly in the night air. Around his right hand, a dull crimson glow pulsed through the cracks of a ring too ancient to belong in this age.
> "Blood resonance: stable. Strain level — fourteen percent."
The voice wasn't human. It spoke directly into his bloodstream, its tone smooth, mechanical, emotionless. The voice of his Blood Pact, bound to him since the night his brother died.
He exhaled slowly, watching the breath fade.
He hadn't used the ring in three months. Not since the last time it almost consumed him.
He remembered the taste of that night: smoke, copper, screaming. His brother's hand slipping from his grasp. The gleam of silver in a Nocturne's eye before the world went red. That was the first time he heard the whisper. That was the first time the ring had spoken.
Now it whispered again.
> "Resonance detected — one hundred meters north."
Arin stiffened. His head tilted slightly, and he inhaled. The air carried it — faint but unmistakable.
Blood.
The scent was thin, like a ribbon of warmth cutting through the damp air. He could see it when he closed his eyes: a shimmering trail of scarlet weaving through the maze of alleys like living smoke.
Someone nearby was bleeding.
"Damn it…" he murmured. His voice was low, raw from disuse.
He knew what would happen if he followed the trail.
Every time he used the ring, the corruption inside him deepened — veins burning, mind splitting under the rush of power. The system called it blood strain. He called it something else. Damnation.
But the scent grew stronger. A human heartbeat pulsed just at the edge of his awareness — fast, erratic, desperate. Someone was in danger.
Arin's hand hovered over the ring. Its surface rippled, veins of red crawling beneath the metal like it was alive.
> "Tracking protocol ready."
He gritted his teeth. "Fine. Just once."
He pressed his thumb against the sigil. The ring flared, and the world changed.
Everything slowed. He could feel the pulse of every living thing within reach — the scurry of rats under the floorboards, the distant flutter of a bird's wings, the uneven rhythm of the wounded heartbeat. The Blood Network unveiled itself, an invisible map drawn in veins and echoes.
He moved.
Boots splashed through puddles as he darted between alleyways, guided by the scent of iron and fear. The city loomed high around him, towers like teeth tearing into the night sky.
Then he heard it — a muffled cry. A woman's voice.
He rounded the corner.
A narrow alley opened up before him, half-lit by a dying lamp. A man stood there, tall, shoulders hunched beneath a soaked coat. In his hand, a jagged blade gleamed. Before him, pressed against the wall, a woman — her hair plastered to her face, eyes wide and wild with panic.
"Please…" she whispered.
Arin's hand twitched. His body screamed to act, to strike. The ring pulsed against his skin like a heartbeat not his own.
> "Engagement possible. Warning: power draw will increase corruption."
He clenched his jaw. "I know."
The blade flashed.
He moved.
The world blurred crimson.
In the space of a heartbeat, he was between them — one hand catching the attacker's wrist mid-swing, the other slamming into his chest. Bones cracked with the sound of wet stone breaking. The thug hit the wall and slid down, wheezing, knife clattering away.
Arin stood over him, breath heavy, eyes burning faint red. His veins glowed beneath his skin. He could feel the man's heartbeat slowing, the blood pulsing weakly beneath the skin.
It called to him.
> "Target subdued. Drain potential — high."
"No." He stepped back, shaking his head. "Not again."
But the whispers rose. Dozens of them. Hundreds. Voices made of hunger.
> "Take it."
"You're starving."
"One drop. You'll feel alive again."
His fingers trembled. He could end the ache in seconds. A single draw, and his strength would surge. The ring pulsed, eager.
The man groaned, trying to crawl away. The movement snapped something inside Arin — the hunger, the pain, the scent of blood.
He lunged.
For a moment, reason drowned beneath crimson flood. The world became rhythm — heartbeat, breath, pulse. He felt the blood move through the man's veins as if it were his own. The ring ignited, flooding him with raw energy.
> "Pact resonance achieved. Power output + seventy percent."
The rush hit like lightning. Every nerve sang. Every heartbeat echoed like thunder. He felt alive.
And then the agony followed.
The whispers became screams. His vision fractured — everything rimmed in red, faces twisting into monstrous shapes. He felt his teeth sharpen, his hands ache as claws threatened to form. His reflection in a rain puddle stared back, monstrous — eyes glowing crimson, veins black as tar.
> "Corruption level: sixty-seven percent. Entering berserk threshold."
Arin staggered back, clutching his head. "No! Stop—stop—"
His knees hit the ground. The rain hissed as it struck the heat radiating from his skin. He slammed his fist into the pavement, hard enough to crack it. Blood ran down his arm, steaming.
> "Accept it."
"We are you."
"We remember the taste."
He screamed — a sound raw enough to silence the voices for a breath. Then, slowly, the ring dimmed. The glow receded. His breathing steadied. The claws didn't form. Not this time.
He looked up.
The woman hadn't run. She stood a few feet away, trembling, clutching the knife the thug had dropped. Her eyes locked on him — not with gratitude, but pure terror.
"What… are you?" she whispered.
Arin looked down at his hands — veins still faintly red, skin steaming under the rain. He closed his fist.
"Something that shouldn't exist."
He turned away. The woman didn't stop him. He could feel her eyes on his back, the terror heavy in the air.
As he walked away, the city swallowed him whole. The rain returned to its endless rhythm.
> "Corruption stabilized. Level: fifty-one percent."
"Halfway to hell," he muttered. "Not bad for a night's work."
He pulled his hood lower and disappeared into the mist. The whispers didn't fade this time. They followed him, soft and knowing.
> "You can't hide forever, Arin."
"Every drop brings you closer."
"When the pact breaks… we'll be free."
He stopped at the edge of a bridge overlooking the lower city — a sprawl of broken towers and endless lights. Water crashed below, carrying the reflection of the moon — swollen and red as an open wound.
Arin touched the ring again. For a heartbeat, he thought he heard his brother's voice in the static of the Blood Network — faint, sorrowful, fading.
Then it was gone.
He exhaled slowly. The hunger settled, coiled deep like a serpent waiting to strike.
"Not yet," he whispered to the night. "I'll control it. I'll control you."
The ring pulsed once, as if mocking him. Then the whispers fell silent.
Far behind him, unseen from the rooftops, a figure watched — cloak rippling in the wind. A silver insignia gleamed on their chest: the mark of the Blood Wardens.
They spoke softly into a comm-crystal.
"Subject confirmed. Corruption level above fifty percent. The Revenant pattern matches."
A pause.
"Arin Vale lives."
The figure turned and vanished into the shadows as lightning split the sky.
And deep below the city, in the hollow catacombs of the old world, something stirred — a pulse in the darkness that answered Arin's awakening with a whisper of its own.
> "The blood remembers."