Ash drifted slowly through the air,
as if the world itself was exhaling its final breath.
The pulse in Novan's chest still beat with that strange rhythm — caught somewhere between life and death.
He stood in the middle of the gray plain, his eyes wandering over the faces approaching from afar.
Humans… yet not like the ones he remembered.
Their faces were pale, their skin cracked, and through their veins ran a dim, red light — as if blood itself had lost its color.
They looked at him with fear and suspicion, as though they could smell the curse they knew too well.
Novan raised a hand cautiously.
> "I… don't want to fight."
But someone screamed from among them:
> "Liar! The Pulse runs through you! We can smell it!"
A spear flew toward him — but before it touched him, it froze mid-air.
For a heartbeat, time itself stopped.
The spear shattered into crimson dust, torn apart by an unseen force.
A calm voice came from within the crowd — heavy, deliberate:
> "Enough."
Everyone stepped back at once.
And from between them emerged a tall man in a dark, blood-stained coat.
His face was sharp, his eyes the color of dark wine, and his black hair was tied back with threads of leather.
On his chest burned a mark — the Pulse, etched into his skin like a living tattoo that moved with his breath.
He stopped before Novan and spoke in a tone almost serene:
> "I never thought I'd see another who carries the Pulse."
Novan narrowed his eyes.
> "Who are you?"
The man smiled faintly and raised his bandaged hand.
> "My name is Siran.
And you… you're the heir to a curse you don't yet understand."
Silence fell.
The sound of their hearts echoed through the stillness, as if the earth itself was listening.
Novan:
> "It's not a curse… It's something inside me I'm trying to understand."
Siran chuckled quietly.
> "Trying?"
"Curses aren't meant to be understood, boy. They're either tamed… or they consume you."
He stepped closer, and the air between them flared with threads of dark red light.
He drew a slender blade from beneath his coat and slid it across his palm.
Blood spilled out — yet instead of falling, it rose, swirling around him like a vortex of glowing crimson.
Novan muttered, astonished:
> "The blood… it moves?!"
Siran:
> "Yes. It listens."
"Bloodcraft isn't merely power — it's a language.
One I learned when I decided I wouldn't die like the rest."
He moved closer, almost touching Novan's shoulder, and whispered:
> "Tell me… when was the last time your body truly belonged to you?"
Novan stepped back half a pace.
> "What are you talking about?"
Siran:
> "When the Pulse beats inside you, it's not yours anymore.
You belong to it."
Then suddenly — he moved.
Faster than sight, he stabbed his blade into the ground, and dozens of shards of solidified blood burst outward like the earth itself was bleeding.
Novan raised his hand instinctively, and from his palm surged a shadowed arm that blocked the strike.
The collision tore the air apart — a thunderclap of red and black.
Ash flew in all directions.
Novan:
> "You fight me… to test me?"
Siran smiled — sharp, deadly.
> "To know whether you deserve to exist."
They charged.
Shadow against blood.
Two pulses clashing in a dying world.
Every blow ignited the earth beneath them.
Siran's blood twisted into chains around his arms, alive and snarling,
while Novan unleashed waves of black mist that broke like tides against unseen rocks.
Their fight was not against each other —
but against what they were.
Between strikes, Siran growled, blocking another attack:
> "Do you know the difference between us?!"
Novan shouted:
> "Say it!"
Siran:
> "I accepted the curse —
and you're still running from it!"
He plunged his hand into his own chest, pulling out a dagger of congealed blood, and hurled it with such force that the air detonated behind it.
Novan barely dodged; it grazed his shoulder, and from the wound seeped living black smoke.
Siran lifted his crimson blade.
> "When you stop fearing what's inside you…
only then will you understand what it means to be the Heir of the Source."
And at that moment,
the sky split open.
Black light rained down like stormwater.
The curse pulsed again —
and the ashen earth began to move.
---
Ash still fell like heavy rain.
The ground — what remained of it — breathed faintly beneath Novan's feet, preparing for something greater.
He thought the battle was over.
But the footsteps emerging from the mist weren't those of the corrupted.
They were human — slow, deliberate, fearless amid the ruin.
Novan lifted his head, his eyes still flickering with black light.
From the haze, a man appeared.
Tall, with silver hair cascading messily over his shoulders,
and eyes the color of dried blood — void of light, filled with silence.
He carried a slender spear, stained with blood that had yet to dry.
Though his body was human, the aura around him stirred something in Novan —
something that pulsed with the same cursed rhythm that haunted his chest.
> Siran: "Didn't expect to see you like this, Heir."
Novan (cautiously): "Who are you?"
Siran: "A man who survived your curse."
Silence.
The words dropped like stones into a deep well.
> Novan: "My curse?"
Siran (faint smile): "That shadow you unleashed in the last battle… it killed hundreds of my kind.
And now you dare to ask?"
He stepped closer, the ash trembling at his feet.
With every motion, crimson vapor rose — as if the earth bled with him.
> Novan: "I didn't choose what I am."
Siran: "That's what everyone says — right before they destroy the world."
He raised his spear. The air thickened, folding into a single, trembling point.
A heartbeat's silence — then thunder.
Siran lunged, his spear slicing the air with a sound like cracking glass.
Novan barely evaded, but the strike tore his shoulder open — black blood spilling out, pulsing with life.
> Siran (watching the blood): "Even your blood refuses to die."
Novan (bitter smile): "So do I."
He rushed forward, his fists wrapped in writhing tendrils of shadow.
His blow met Siran's spear —
and the clash erupted into a blaze of red and black.
Blood and shadow — two discordant notes in one doomed symphony.
> Siran: "The power of shadow… and the black pulse? No human could wield both."
Novan: "I'm not entirely human."
Siran (lowly): "That much is clear… but then what are you?"
Novan didn't answer.
He simply raised his left hand — and from the ground, a shadowed arm rose out of nothingness,
its fingers stretching as if feeling the world for the first time.
> Novan: "This… is what the Source left in my veins."
The air vibrated with his words.
The earth trembled.
The sky split apart, and the winds became a storm of ash and smoke.
Siran drove his spear into the ground and closed his eyes.
Blood began to rise from his body — not from wounds, but from old scars.
Every pain he had ever endured came back to fight beside him.
The blood formed a vortex, swirling around him like a red cyclone.
> Siran: "If you're the Source's son… then I'm its creation."
Novan (tense): "What?!"
Siran: "The curse tested us. Some perished, others changed.
I drank its blood until it became my own."
And in the next breath, they charged again —
black shadow against crimson blood.
Their impact sounded like thunder splitting the world.
Every strike carved scars into the earth.
Every movement echoed, as though their war was fought not between men,
but between two wills striving to consume each other.
> Novan (shouting): "Why are you fighting me?!"
Siran: "Because I hate what I am… and what you are."
Novan: "And what's that?"
Siran: "The Pulse… that refuses to die."
He slammed his spear into the ground, unleashing a storm of crimson shards.
Novan opened his arms, and the shadows rose to devour them all.
In the stillness that followed, they stood face to face —
their breaths mingling with smoke and blood.
> Siran (whispering): "If you keep existing… the world will turn into an open grave."
Novan (broken smile): "Then start by burying me."
And the earth exploded.
---
End of the chapter 5.